"Too Nice For Our Own Good" or "We Are All Torturers Now"

[bloom]

Heather Mac Donald, (Sr. Fellow, Manhattan Instit.) was on Cspan's Washington Journal this morning providing attractive deniability for the pro-torture apologists. Apparently she had written an article entitled, "Too Nice For Our Own Good" (or something - it doesn't google) which was printed in the Wall Street Journal this morning,

Yesterday Mark Danner (author of "Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror.") was on Democracy Now having written "We Are All Torturers Now" which was printed in the New York Times yesterday.


It was such an interesting contrast in presentation of the Gonzales issue. The Cspan presentation was like icing spread over garbage - so nobody could see what was underneath. While the Democracy Now program did it's best to discuss the implications of having a White House counsel write drafts that condone torture and then promote said person to the top Law enforcement position in the country. (With one consequence being the increased likelihood of our soldiers suffering from equally unethical treatment - another a breakdown in their own order and discipline).

The Cspan program with it's callers showed how divided we all are (as usual). With the usual deniers of reality who think the whole objection to Gonzales and torture shows how much in denial (or evil) the Democrats are. A few callers objected to torture and Gonzales - but MacDonald quickly snuffed them out - and added more icing and a few sprinkles of delusion.

MacDonald denied there should be any responsibility/accountability for the torture by higher-ups and attributed the filming of the torture to the porn culture we apparently live in. According to her - Al Qaedians do not deserve ethical treatment. She also said none of our rights have been taken away through the Patriot Act.

The Republicans go on creating their own reality and getting others to buy into it. (Meanwhile the "ownership class" is protected by the ones out there torturing on their behalf). The Wall Street Journal seems to take the position that the US cannot be bad enough. There is nothing we cannot do that we should be censored for. And anyone who thinks otherwise must listen to too much liberal propaganda.

"My view of this is rather simple. In his position in the White House, rather than helping the president do what he needed to do while following the law, he gave him advice that let him circumvent the law....It's corrupting all of us, I believe." - Mark Danner

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/06/153201

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login

http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Series&Code=WJE&ShowVidNum=6&Rot_Cat_CD=WJ&Rot_HT=206&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=30&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30

[atommom]

1. Here's "Too Nice for our Own Good" ...

This "torture narrative" is gospel truth among elite opinion-makers, yet it is false in every detail. It relies on ignorance of the actual interrogation techniques promulgated after 9/11. However spurious, the narrative has had a devastating effect on interrogators' ability to get intelligence from detainees.

Soon after the Afghanistan fighting began, Army interrogators realized that their part in the war on terror was not going according to script. Pentagon doctrine, honed in the Cold War, held that 95% of prisoners would break upon straightforward questioning. But virtually no al Qaeda and Taliban detainee was giving up information -- not in response to direct questioning, and not in response to army-approved psychological gambits for prisoners of war.
<snip>
Such treatment, though far short of torture, probably violates the Geneva Convention's norms for lawful prisoners of war, who must be protected from "any form of coercion." But terrorists fail every test for coverage under the Geneva Conventions: They seek to massacre civilians, they conceal their status as warriors, and they treat their own prisoners to such niceties as beheadings. President Bush properly found that terrorists do not qualify as Geneva-protected prisoners of war.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110497519167818391-IBjg4Njlah4m5uuaoCGbquBm5,00.html

Scary stuff.

[bloom]

2. thanks

I don't know if it really helps their cause to be having people trying to make the case that torture is justified and if anything we are being "too nice" :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :argh:

It does scare me to hear people going along with this.

[BurtWorm]

3. The torture advocates are only doing it because the "ECs" in question are

Muslim, and, thus, not human enough in their eyes to deserve human rights. Scratch a torture advocate the least little bit and you'll find a Muslim-phobic fanatic underneath.

[bloom]

4. In her article torture is just "carefully controlled stress techniques"

She concludes: "In fighting them, we must hold ourselves to our own high moral standards -- without succumbing to the utopian illusion that we can prevail while immaculately observing every precept of the Sermon on the Mount."

I would have to say that her moral standards are not partcularly high - about as high as the gutter.

But I imagine if someone just read her article and tried really hard to believe that we are being the good guys - they might convince themselves. If enough people said it over and over.... we are the guys, we are the good guys.....

[atommom]

11. It's creepy and Orwellian, but it will work on some people.

Too many people. :shrug:

[Solly Mack]

5. Part of the problem with Republicans and their reality is

it's also the same reality being forced on all Americans.

Like or not, we are living the right wing wet dream. We wake up every morning to a reality of Bush as President, and right wingers in charge of Congress and the SCOTUS. State and local governments taking their own hits with "fetal protection" laws for miscarriages and legislated bigotry.

On every level we are assaulted by this right wing reality. We are living in their delusions. The more nuts they are, the more nuts things will get.

We can laugh with scorn about Republicans creating their own reality, but it's our reality too. There is no waking up and finding out we've been dreaming. This nightmare is a waking nightmare.

They've primed Americans for years for this point in time by chipping away at the Constitution, revising history, and attacking education. They've waited for this moment. They will make the most of it.

Never before in America's history has the groundwork been laid so well for imposing a new reality for defining America. In the early years of would-be right wing domination we were still the majority. People still remembered enough about democracy to fight back. To know the difference between the "republican reality" and the real thing.

But the constant attacks on freedom and liberty have shaped several generations of people who believe America has "always been this way." That republicans were always neo-con fascists. So Joe and Jane blow republican doesn't even understand that neo-con fascists have taken over their party. Because of the way they've been conditioned, they aren't likely to ever find out. They've been taught to strike back in anger rather than to read a book to discover for themselves. They've been taught to scorn knowledge found in books as elitism.

That religion was always a "big" issue. When I can remember a time when most people mocked the likes of Jerry Falwell. The Republican Party didn't always bow down before it's right wing religious members. But that's not the reality that's been shaped and honed for years and years...so many don't know this.

It took years for America to reach this point. It took neo-con fascists years to prime America for this reality. Now it's our reality too.

If a person can accept the neo-con reality as something that is right and true, then accepting torture would be no big deal for these people. Because they have already bought into years of conditioning and never once questioned it. For them, this is what America has always been.

sorry..got carried away.

[bloom]

6. You are right about their reality being the one we have to live in.

That is the scary thing. The callers that bought into that reality ranged from sounding very educated to not so much. But the thing that holds them together is their firm belief that their reality is true and that the Democrats are liars.

I'm really starting to feel like I live in the twilight zone.

[Solly Mack]

7. It is the twilight zone...without an off switch.

It is scary. Anyone not scared really hasn't thought about it.

[atommom]

8. "We are living in their delusions." Very good (and scary) post.

The only consolation I have at the moment is the hope that there will be enough of us to change things one day.

[Disturbed]

9. Amerika is always right.

The conditioning of Amerikans is that Amerika is the shining beacon on the hill and that every other country must bow to Amerika, blessed by The Almighty. The Bush Junta frames the Iraq insjurgents as "the bad guys". This is the mind set that pervades the majority of the Amerikans that support the Bush Junta. Security over liberty is winning and abuse and torture of any enemies of Amerika is acceptable because that is what is necessary to protect Amerika.

If one studies the situation of Amerika in the year before WW1, it will become obvious that Fascism was brought about by the Govt. and Corps. in a rapid fashion during that time frame. We are now experiencing a similar situation.

[bloom]

10. .

:kick: